"MacBook Mini"

After fooling around with a new Toshiba Celeron laptop (the one I bought to replace my MacBook) - including running the Beta of Windows Vista on it quite smoothly (this is a Celeron M 4-- series, which, so far as I can tell, is basically a rebranded Core Solo).

I was thinking, for a lot of people's needs, Apple might consider a "low end" MacBook (the basic MacBook, after all, is really somewhere in the middle of notebooks).

Something like this:

Celeron M 410 (1.46 Ghz)
1 Gigabyte of Ram (I think a Gig of Ram will be standard within a few months, anyways, on all but the cheapest of the cheap) - 1 x 1 Gig chip.
40 Gigabyte Hard Drive
Intel GMA 950
Non-Airport Wireless, no Bluetooth

My private suggestion is to omit the optical drive altogether, and offer a combo DVD burner/external hard drive as an add-on.

I imagine something like that could be shipped, together with iLife, for $599 or so.

As well, I'd ship them in plenty of colours - at least half a dozen - along with a Metallic option, a la the 12" Powerbooks.

At the same time, I'd say, bump the MacBooks by adding non-integrated graphics to them, while increasing the speed of the Pros.

After all, we have a three option desktop line - Mini-iMac-MacPro, it would make some sense to replicate it down the line.

As well, this would appeal to someone like myself, who loves Macs, especially for road work, but who already has a powerful desktop and is looking for something for fairly light work.

Celeron M 410 (1.46 Ghz) - will be obsolete in a matter of months; dont even think about 2 years.1 Gigabyte of Ram - most can live with that40 Gigabyte Hard Drive - too tiny. Unless you use your laptop only for taking notes, 40GB will fill up faster than you would think possible.Intel GMA 950 - i can live with thisNon-Airport Wireless, no Bluetooth - Whats wrong with Airport? It's just Apple's name for wireless. I agree that a lot of us could do without bluetooth, but i need it for my KB+M

Some aspects of your ideal laptop appeal to me, but others i don't think would go down too well. I'm not a harcore computer user, but i've had to start spilling files onto my iPod because of lack of room on my 60GB MacBook HDD. There is no way i could opperate with 40GB in these times.

You are describing an old iBook basically, you can pick them up for $600 or so.
Apple is about the latest and greatest. For compromise computing you go to the Window$ world

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Except for the lack of Airport, which was stock on an iBook for a good long time. And is really an essential component in a laptop. What the hell is the point of having a laptop that can't go wireless unless you buy something from a third-party?

I was thinking, for a lot of people's needs, Apple might consider a "low end" MacBook (the basic MacBook, after all, is really somewhere in the middle of notebooks).

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The Macbook IS the low-end of Apple's laptop line. Bear in mind that Apple is essentially a premium brand. Anybody wanting an Apple is going to be aware that they'll have to spend a little more.

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Celeron M 410 (1.46 Ghz)

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A Celeron M? It's not that great from a technical stand point, and it's not that great in terms of brand image. First off, you'd be diluting the current pool of processors at Apple. Right now, we're got Core Duo and Xeon at the top. That's easy for a consumer to understand, and it looks good. You add in a Celeron to the line-up and that's no longer there. You can't brand it as Core Duo, Apple wouldn't use Centrino... you have an inferior looking laptop.

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1 Gigabyte of Ram (I think a Gig of Ram will be standard within a few months, anyways, on all but the cheapest of the cheap) - 1 x 1 Gig chip.

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Why? Macbook only comes with 512, and that's in the form of 2x 256s. It's not going to be cost effective to put a 1GB stick in such a cheap machine, and it'd upstage the rest of the line.

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40 Gigabyte Hard Drive

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Too small, no matter what way you look at it. Beyond which, there's no similar part in Apple's current line up. In fact, that applies for the processor, too - they'd have to buy in bulk lots of the Celeron and bulk lots of the 40GB. It's another part to keep in stock, and another supply chain to form.

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Non-Airport Wireless, no Bluetooth

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No Bluetooth I can understand... but no Airport? Just what does your laptop have going for it? That doesn't make it all that portable. You'd be confined to wires. Which leads me to...

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My private suggestion is to omit the optical drive altogether, and offer a combo DVD burner/external hard drive as an add-on.

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...no optical? Or as an add-on? Right out of the box, that rules out DVD Player, iMovie, iDVD, CD ripping on iTunes, etc... and re-installing OS X? Uh oh. It goes against Apple's seamless design, their total integration approach. The big selling point of the iMac is that you take it out of the box and turn it on. That's it. You take out the optical, and that's gone. Especially if they have to pay for it.

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I imagine something like that could be shipped, together with iLife, for $599 or so.

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As said: 50% of iLife is gone from lack of an optical drive.

As well, I'd ship them in plenty of colours - at least half a dozen - along with a Metallic option, a la the 12" Powerbooks.

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At the same time, I'd say, bump the MacBooks by adding non-integrated graphics to them, while increasing the speed of the Pros.

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It's not that simple. You'd have to either significantly cut the margins on the Macbook to do that, or put the price up. And for the speed increase: you're limited to the Merom line, for now, on the MBP, essentially. Faster processors cost more money and lower margins or put prices up.

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After all, we have a three option desktop line - Mini-iMac-MacPro, it would make some sense to replicate it down the line.

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The laptop line, however, is a different issue. The Mini is for people who want a quick way to switch, to test their feet in the waters of Apple. There's no real comparison in the laptop market, and attempting to do the same with your outlined laptop won't work as well. You can't make such a good laptop for the price as you can a Mini.

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As well, this would appeal to someone like myself, who loves Macs, especially for road work, but who already has a powerful desktop and is looking for something for fairly light work.

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But what work, really? Do you really think there is a large market for a laptop with no optical, no wireless, etc? The best you could do with that is some light word processing. No PhotoShop on that, etc.

Don't the system requirements for OS X explicitly include a CD drive? Or even a DVD drive, at this point? Installing storebought software would be a pain... I could see them trying an ultraportable, a laptop equivalent of the mini, but not without wireless and an optical drive.

Scarlet Fever said:

40 Gigabyte Hard Drive - too tiny. Unless you use your laptop only for taking notes, 40GB will fill up faster than you would think possible.

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I'm not a harcore computer user, but i've had to start spilling files onto my iPod because of lack of room on my 60GB MacBook HDD. There is no way i could opperate with 40GB in these times.

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You are not everyone. Plenty of folks can get by with far less than 60GB. Now, if they were to include a 2.5" (or hell, even 1.8") drive in one of these mini-macbooks, with capacities going up I can't see why they'd have to limit themselves to 40 except for cost; still though, if that were a factor, and these were being marketed as low-cost, entry-level machines, why not?

More likely though if Apple were ever to try the ultraportable idea it'd be as expensive or more than a regular MacBook. I could see:

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